Market demand for smaller and more functional electronic devices has driven the development of semiconductor devices, packages, and recently, entire systems disposed on a chip. Many electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, employ a variety of design-specific electronic components. However, the space available inside the electronic devices is limited, particularly as the electronic devices are made smaller.
Most semiconductor package solutions provide a chip coupled to a carrier and one or more electronic components coupled to the carrier adjacent to the chip. Some of the electronic components are tuned in a specific manner according to the end application, usually by the end-user customer. Consequently, the package manufacturer is often required to supply a variety of packages, each of which is configured to be tuned by the customer in accordance with their desired end use. These design-specific packages limit the package manufacturer from offering a set of flexible, broad-based packaging solutions useful to multiple customers. Package manufacturers would prefer to fabricate packages having an economy of scale that are suited to meet the individual needs of many consumers.
Both the manufacturers and the consumers of these advanced electronic devices desire devices that are reduced in size and yet have increased device functionality.
For these and other reasons there is a need for the present invention.